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THE REBELLION: ITS ORIGIN AND LIFE IN SLAVERY. 



POSITION AND POLICY OF MISSOURI. 



s r» E E O H 






) 



CHARLES D. DRAKE 



// 



DELIVERED, BY REQUEST, 



In Mercantile Library Hall, St. Louis, April 14, 1862; 

HAVING BEEN PREVIOUSLY SPOKEN, IN SUBSTANCE, AT UNION, MO., APRIL 7, 1862. 



In a placid bay, on the south-eastern coast of 
the United States, stands a noble fortress, erec- 
ted by the American Government, for the protec- 
tion ot a Southern commercial capital and the 
interior region connected with it. Through many 
years and at vast expense, New England granite 
was quarried, and by tens of thousands of tons 
transported ocean-wise, to drop into that bay the 
foundations for that fortress, and upon them to 
build its massive wiills. It was completed ; and 
behind its frowning battlements that commercial 
capital reposed in security, odorous of southern 
flowers and warm with tne rays of a southern sun. 

That fortress was Sumter — that capital, 
Charleston ; one named for a patriot of '76, the 
other for a British King; each appropriately 
named. The plain and solid granite fabric looked 
the republican hero — the ornate and aristocratic 
city typified the king. Both were destined to 
historic immortality. 

In the fortress was a little band of seventy 
men, with lees than three days' food in store, 
and above them waved the American flag; ©n 
the neighboring shores, behind ominous bat- 
teries, und3r a banner till then unknown, were 
a hundred times their number, in warlike array. 
It was night. The silent stars looked down 
upon the bay, the city, the batteries, the for- 
tress, the seven thousand men, and the seventy ; 
and nothing told them that ere they shone upon 
the brow of another night, a shock would thrill 
from that Bpot along the world's nerves, which 
might not cease to vibrate while the world stands. 



The surrender of that fortress was demanded, 
— ruthlessly and unrighteously demanded, — and 
righteously, as well as bravely, refused ; and in 
the dark hour preceding dawn the seven thou- 
sand warn the seventy, that in one hour from 
that time they will open fire from their batteries 
upon the fortress, behind which slumbered the 
city of kingly name. It was an hour of treason's 
demoniac preparation for attack, of patriotism's 
calm and steady readiness for defense ; an hour 
of years to the angel host that Viewed from 
their starlit heights the neariug triumph of trai- 
tors over their country; an hour of wild exulta- 
tion among the internal host, over the coming 
revelry of war and death. 

The hour ended ; and as the awakening day 
gave light to the seven thousand, those batteries, 
north and south, east aud west, thundered forth, 
and Peace fled affrighted aud weeping from that 
placid bay aud from America ! For four and 
forty h«urs there beat upon that fortress a horri- 
ble tempest, above and below, outside and inside, 
of deadly missiles, bomb and shell, cold and hot; 
but the seventy stood firm. But human endur- 
ance, though endowed with superhuman cour- 
age, cannot long resist a hundred times 
its strength. In the five and fortieth hour, 
wasted and worn by brave labor and exhausting 
vigils, the seventy — greater in defeat than all the 
seven thousand in triumph — capitulated with 
honor, and bearing Sumter's untarnished flag 
in their loving arms, marched forth from that 
granite fortress, and sailed frQin that 



southern bay, to receive a nation's admiring 

thanks, and to live with Leonidae and nil 

tan three hundred, in historic renown forever. 

Such was the scene which, this d 
month since, closed the first assault of Ameri- 
cans upon their Country— the first humili 
of America's flag by her own children. As the 
tale was told over the world, nations b1 irted hi 
astonishment and awe. 1 bed, for it 

bespoke the downfall of republics; tb 
of freedom wept, for it seemed the knell oi lib- 
erty. The peoj)le who Loved thai dish i 
flag sprang to their feet with one mighty im- 
pulse, and every heart swelled win 
resolve to wipe out the md punish 

the traitors who had inflicted it. Twenty mil- 
lions of them answered those thundering batter- 
ies with a shout that shook the earth. 
Hundreds of thousands arrayed themselves in 
the unaccustomed panoply of war, and, leaving 
kindred, friends, and home, took up the Lit 
march to victory or death, under that flag, for 
that flag! It was such an uprising of a great 
people as no nation, barbarian or* 
ganor Christian, bad ever befo d. it 

wa6 far beyoud and above anything that th< 
traitors had dreamed of. It was a noble tribute 
to a flag which symbolized only justice, honor, 
and national glory, wherever if waved. Jl is 
right that we remember the anniversary of that 
day, and whiie we recall its humiliating scenes, 
think also of the glorious response of the twenty 
millions. It tells u* where the defenders of 
American liberty may be found, in the hour ol 
need. 

The unprovoked attack on Sumter was not 
the beginning; it was only a necessary se- 
quence of preceding events. Sixteen months ago 
from this time began the treasonable work, of 
which that was but the on tbi riodof time 

which 1 cannot look back upon, without the feel- 
ings of one who, from ha all hie life 
upon bright and beautiful scenes of 
and happiness, has been suddenly com] 
to turn to one of v rath and misery and 
(bath, and wit ne- s its pageantry ol 
pass before hi in for long and weary months, 
■ nine- his days and haunting his nights, until 
his heart ai mo i bursts with grief over the ruin, 
before his eye , ol what be held most dear. The 
30th day of December, I860, dawned upon 
py and united nation ent d0WD upon a 
people with t re , lighted in tb 
From that day — when South Carolina Btruck her 
ferocious blow ai the Constitution, and mocked 
and spit upi-n the flag of the Union — to this, 
the great American nation has struggled for its 
lib-. We pioudly thonghl the nation immortal ; 
Put we lind thai Its existence, like our own, 
no: t be defended ag rinsl i be 
We trusted, and, ai we now I now, blindly tri 
to Amei li protection ; but 
the] bi came hi r bitti reel and would 
be her murderers. We believed bei Constiti 
safe in the p. u i of all the people ; but wi 
lived to bi ' thai a pari ol i bal people had beet 
educated to destroy, a1 the bidding of unprinci- 
pled and n In. i 

tingulshed tbi move all pn ci ding nal I 
o) government, W 

lain, in the \ Irtui ofl 

wide ■■'• tii m, pei verted Elded 

ill B lllii 

thai section patriot Ism mi 
poai d in the strength ol a ti ae and 
allegianci : v. , ire i raghl 1 1 illegi mi e is 

paramount adtu ■ h , | We looked for 

b.\ ,-, and w< re mi I « U b bati ; foi ti nth, and 
were confronted with brazen falsehood: for fair 



dealing, and were ensnared by treachery; for 
forbearance, and were assailed with threats, and 
taunts, and domineering exactions; for open- 
handed am I high-toned chivalry, and were op- 
posed with chicanery and fraud, too sublle to be 
understood by honest men— too audacious and 
unscrupulous to be by upright people believed 
possible. Such, in brief, is the experience 
through which loyal citizens have, since that 
fatal twentieth of December, 1860, been called 
to pass, [n the history of civilized nations 
it has no modern parallel. It comprehends 
every ingredient which could give bit- 
terness to the cup, every shadow that could 
fix intense gloom upon the retrospect, every el- 
nld becloud the future with dis- 
couragement and dismay. 

Hut why dwell on the gloomy aspects of these 
evil times V Tin ur of civil war we have 

beheld its terrible devastations, and nothing is 
wanting to impress upon our minds the dread 
realities of which we have, during that time, 
been daily witnesses. Every succeeding day but . 
widens the circle of di m i and mourning, 
enlarges the dark record left, by the crime 
of thai day. Ami long, it may be, that record 
is to continue to be written ; until those 
that read it might pray for the appalling scroll to 
be shut out forever from their view, in the night 
ot a welcome death. But, heart-sickening as if 
is, we mus! still look upon the deadly strife; and 
our children and tLe world must behold it, too ; 
and with us, and with them, and with all in tin- 
earth, the question starts np unbidden, will 
not be kept down, will be heard along the line ol 
coming ages — Whence the origin, what the lift 
of this dire outbreak of popular fury, this sat< 

the best of human governments'. 
This inquiry can never be out of time, or out ol 
place. We cannot know how toestimate or dea! 
with a present calamity, if weknow notits cau > 
and nature; nor will our posterity be wiserin 

Bomeevil day which, percha , may come to 

them, if they comprehend nol what brought 
these days upon us. Let us, then, endeavor, 
with somewhat of fullness, to answer this evei 
recurring question. 

If ever a people were averse to believe thai 
(rear I among them, it was the Ameri- 

can people, prior to South Carolina's dc peratl 

plunge into the fiery gull ol secession. Agaii 
and again, in the healed conflicts of parties 
through a long series ol years, Southern threat 
of disunion had broken harshly upon the publn 
ear ; but the North, even up to the last rnomeir 
fused to recognize the possibility ol 
their attempted execution. But, in the light o 
thepasl year's events, no thinking man can fail 
now to see that, sooner or later, such an attempt 
was inevitable; for reasons which 1 will proceed 

Vim know, and all candid observers know, 

that the people of the United States present two 

act, and, in some respects, uncongenial 

developments. Without, attempting to trace 

hi ail their courses, it is enough for this 

• ' er to their bearings upon our 

polil lUod as a u it ion, miner a com- 

ami at. Of the two developments 

one i are and principles essentially 

il u ing the word in a i 

I ; the othi i points, i Bsentially 

ocratic; the former belonging to the 

North . the latter to the Southern. 

Each obeyed the law of its own condition. The 

md the universality of free 

labor in the North stimulated a democratic out- 

th; while the opposite order in the South 

fostered a social aristocracy, which, by a resist- 



less tendency, became also political. The whole 
hi6torv of the country smce it achieved Inde- 
pendence has proved this. Indeed, I am not 
aware that intelligent Southerners deny— but, ou 
the contrary, they seem rather to boast— that 
the legitimate and certain effect of slavery is lo 
create an essential aristocracy. He that was 
born to authority, and has been accustomed to 
implicit obedience from large numbers of de 
pendents, may ever be expected to becom 
greateror less decree, tenacious of power, am- 
bitious for its increase in his hands, impatient 
of restraint, and imperious in subjecting others 
to his will. 

These two elements, opposite iu their organic 
principles and their tendencies, might hav« co- 
existed in the same nation without dangerous 
conflict, but for the important fact that the dem- 
ocratic section steadily and rapidly gained in 
numbers upon the other, until the slaveholding 
interest, even when combined as a unit, was a 
minority, and apparently, indeed certainly, des 
tiued to remain so. Had Mr. Calhoun's idea ol 
a minority veto upon the will of the majority 
been engrafted upon our national Constitution, 
the South would never have dreamed of S< 
sion, for it would forever have governed th( 
tion. But as the Constitution is that of a repub- 
lic, based upon the fundamental principle that 
the majority shall govern, the aristocracy revolt- 
ed at the approaching application of that princi- 
ple to themselves ; and, rather than tolerate a ma- 
jority not controlled by them, whether its rule 
were right or wrong, just or unjust, resolved lo 
cast off the Constitution of their own adoption, 
and, by revolutionary violence, erect 
government for themselves, which should be, as 
they term it, homogeneous; that is, should rep 
resent slaveholding communities only, and re- 
flect their aristocratic features and sentiments. 

Now, my friends, uninfluenced, it I know my- 
sell, by passion or prejudice, I hold this to be a 
candid and true statement of the case. It 
is presented because we can get no intel- 
ligent view of the cause of the rebellion, 
without considering those facts. My prop- 
osition is, that the present conflict was, 
sooner or later, certain to come. Not be- 
cause the Northern majority would attempt to 
subvert the rights of the slaveholding States, 
but because the aristocractic minority would, 
with absolute certainty, separate itself, by vio- 
lence, if necessary, from the democratic majori- 
ty, the very hour it could no longer subject 
that majority to its will. It is folly to shut our 
eyes to this inevitable operation of an invariable 
law of humanity. No aristocracy ever y<t 
tailed to grasp at power, or ever surrendered 
it without a struggle, and none ever will, it 
necessary, it will fight to retain it. For many 
years we refused to believe that the Southern 
aristocracy would seek that terrible resort, be- 
cause it se'emed out of the range of any imagina- 
ble possibility that the descendants of our Revo- 
lutionary sires could ever strike at the life of 
their glorious Country. How bitterly we were 
mistaken, let the past year's history tell! 
We forgot that an aristocracy ruled the South, 
and that aristocracies stop not at blood to hold 
and perpetuate their predominance. We forgot 
that the lust of power regards not thi 
that keep just men to the path of right. And 
while the loyal portion of the nation hesitated, 
doubted, woudered, and desired conciliation, 
the Southern aristocrats struck tfa 
precipitated this war. They aimed it deliberately, 
with many years' premeditation, and with a 
relentless purpose to destroy. At their door 
lies the awful account of the most causeless 



and most indefensible of all rebellions. Not 
one of all the thousands of valuable lives sacri- 
ficed in this mortal struggle, but is chargeable 
to them. Not a groan or a sigh escapes suffer- 
ing hearts, but rises to Heaven in accusing 
thunder-tones against that aristocratic minority, 
threw " firebrands, arrows, and death " 
into the midst of a happy people, without a 
v of justification, without even a provo- 
cation. 

friends, it is vain to say, as many do, that 
the anti-slavery agitation which has existed in 
the Northern States for many years, was the 
cause of Southern rebellion. I admit the exist- 
ence and pernicious character of that agitation, 
and have always condemned it. From its first 
manifestation to the present time, I have uni- 
formly opposed it. But I do not iutend, if 1 can 
ent it, that treason shall hide its hideous 
lineaments behind Abolitionism. The latter is 
bid enough; but the former i6 ten thousand 
..-.. The latter would destroy slavery 
if it could, but is without the least power to do 
it: the former would disrupt the Uniou, over- 
throw the Constitution, ahd'split the nation into 
tile fragments; and its power has showu lt- 
uch as to require half the military force of 
the loyal States to crush it. If Abolitionism is 
to be chargid with causing this rebellion, it 
should have preceded Southern disunionism. 
tie whole world knows that Andrew Jack- 
son beat clown nullification and secession, in 
1832, when there was not a known— ceralnly not 
a meddlesome— abolitionist in all the free States, 
nor had there been heard a whisper of anti- 
slavery agitation there. Treason, then, was in 
the South before Abolitionism was iu the North. 
And if the history of the last thirty years proves 
anything, it is that though the secession mon- 
ster recoiled before the "old hero's" blows, it 
nuts only to crouch in its lair, and watch, and wait. 
The spirit of disunion which, in 1*832, made the 
tariff the pretext for nullification, and threatened 
secession if the government attempted to exe- 
cute in South Carolina the law of Congress which 
the Convention of that State had declared null 
and void within her borders, never slept for a 
single moment. It lived and grew in Southern 
hearts, extended its control over Southern minds, 
was a perpetual spring of Southern policy, and 
long held up a Southern Confederacy as the realiv 
zation of a Southern millenium. When the tariff 
question failed to afford it a foothold, it fulfilled 
Jackson's prophecy that its next attempt would 
be in connection with the subject of slavery. 
Unhappily, the Northern agitation on that sub- 
ject, which began in 1834,— though limited in ex- 
tent and of feeble proportions, and for many 
years hardly respectable iu the number of its 
adherents,— furnished that pretext only too 
soon. Southern traitors saw in it their best 
hope, and the disunion spirit acquired new life. 
It presented a rallying point, around which they 
hoped and labored to gather to disunion the whole 
body of the slave States. But it was the point 
ot revival, not of origin. I believe there has not 
;„, n ... mom* nt of time for fifty tears,m/i«i dis- 
s not, to a greater or less extent, the ruling 
thought of leading Southern politicians. If this 
be true,' it stamps with the basest hy- 
pocrisy all the Southern clamor about vi- 
olated rights, and brands Southern leaders as 
the worst" of traitors. That it is true, I will en- 
deavor briefly to show 

No man will deny that the attempt of South 
Carolina, in 1832, to exercise the assumed State 
right to nullify within her borders a law ot Con- 
gress, wa6, to every intent and purpose, disunion. 
I assume, and the propriety of the assumption 



will hardly be questioned, that it was impossible 
tor the people of any State, to have been sudden- 
ly brought to participate in, or consent to, dis- 
union. The enormity of the act, viewed in any 
light, was too great, and its probable conse- 
quence6 too portentous, for it to have found 
easy favor with &Dy portion of the people. It 
was necessary to educate them to it. Hence, 
were we without any direct evidence whatever, 
we could not doubt that the spirit of disunion 
existed in South Carolina, some time before its 
abortive effort in 1832. How long before, we 
cannot know conjectuially ; but, certainly, some 
years But among the materials for history 
which 'his rebellion has brought to light, is that 
which, fortunately for the cause of truth, fixes 
B tunc long before 1832, when the thought of 
disunion was revolving in burning courses 
through the brain that afterwards exerted a 
more controlling influence over the South, 
than that ot any other man. I need hardly 
say that I refer to John C. Calhoun. He, 
at least, if no other, as far back as the year 
1813, entertained and uttered the thought of dis- 
union. Whether it originated with him, cannot 
be told. It is enough that he gave expression 
to it early in his public lite, and that the idea has 
never died since; but has been cherished in his 
State, until it culminated in the incomparable 
crime of the twentieth ot December, 1860. The 
evidence of his having at so early a day — and, be 
it remarked, during our last war with Great Bri- 
tain — yielded his great mind to the lure of trea- 
6on, is to be found in a letter of the venerable 
Commodore Charles Stewart, of the United 
8tate6 Navy, dated May 4, 1861, and published 
extensively at the time. In that letter Cointno 
dore Stewart gives his reminiscences of a con 
venation which took place iu December, 1812 
between hitn and Mr. Calhoun, then a Repre- 
sentative in Congress. It would be interesting 
to read the whole letter, but there is not time 
for that. I must content myself with that part 
ot it which relates to the matter in hand. 

In the conversation, Commodore Stewart 
said: 

" You in the South and South-west are decidedly the 
aristocratic portion of this Union j you are so iu hold- 
ing persons i.i perpetuity in slavery; you are so in 
every domestic quality; so in every habit iu your 
lives, living and actions ; so in habits, customs inter- 
course and manners ; you neither work with your 
hands, heads, nor any machinery, but live and have 
your living, not in accordance with the will of your 
Creator, but by the sweat of slavery ; ana yet you as- 
sume all the attiibntes, professions and advantages 
of democracy." 

To this Mr. Calhoun replied: 

" I see that you speak from the head of a youne 
statesman, and from the hoart of a patriot, but you 
lose sight of the politician and the Bectional policy of 
the people. [ admit your conclusions in respeci to 
us Southrons. That we are essentially aristocratic I 
cannoi deny, inn we can and do yield mm 

racy, This ii our sectional i \ . we are rroi 

iiy thrown upon and solemnly wedded to that 
(however Q ma; 
reelings), toi the i one< i eal Ion ot our Interests 
throiM vlth thatparty, it, 

•■)■; but Wh, 

Ion, through 
democracy, or any material 
whichBhau tend to throw us out of t) 

I then rt tort to thb i.i boh i k>» of i an 

under 
the cli 

hut. and i 

thai period, fon>< to the South no resoura but In 

lotion; tor do amendments to the Const! utloncon d 

be rearhed through a convention of the people under 
the three-fourths rale." 



It is upon the evidence furnished by this let- 
ter, as well as by reasoning from the necessity 
ot educating the people of South Carolina up to 
disunion, prior to 1832, that I base my convic- 
tion that that fata! idea has influenced the South- 
ern mind, more or less, for a full half-century 
past. Whether so or not, however, the other 
position remains — concerning which there can 
be no possible doubt — that disunionism preced- 
ed Abolitionism several years ; and therefore the 
latter cannot be the cause of the rebellion whose 
flames encircle us now, bursting out from fires 
kindled more than thirty years ago, that have 
never once gone out in all that ti 

Let U6 now glance at a few points in the his- 
tory of the United States, from the days of nulli- 
fication to the present time. Through that en- 
tile period disunionism has had but one home in 
this laud, and that was in the South. If there 
were any in the North who entertained the 
wretched thought, they were so few and so 
feeble in influence, as to occasion not a moment's 
uneasiness to any but themselves. The South, 
and pre-eminently South Carolina, has all the 
honor of the monster's paternity ; and s tke chord 
which, from the fir6t, was touched, was that 
which would easily vibrate through Southern 
hearts — the apprehended loss of Southern control in 
the national Government. It is very remarkable 
that the prominent thought iu the speech with 
which Mr. Calhoun, in the, Senate, on the 15th of 
February, 1833, laid the foundation for the suc- 
ceeding movement toward disunion, was. the very 
same used by the South Carolina Convention, in 
December, 1860, to seduce the other slave States 
into secession. Both exhibited alively dread of the 
South' sbeing in a minority, Itwasthi ■ ! ' pectacle 
of an aristocracy clinging to power; the convul- 
sive straggle of hands accustomed to the sceptre, 
to keep it. In that speech the great Southerner 
elaborated his theory of a minority veto upon 
the will of the majority, and illustrated it from 
Roman and Jewish history. From it I piesent 
a few sentences, which you will agree with me 
were a fit prelude to that deep-laid plot, which, 
long after his voice ceased to be heard on 
earth, bore the burning fruits of treason. He 
said: 

"But to return to the general government : we have 
now sufficient experience to ascertain that the ten- 
dency to conflict in this action is between (Southern 
and other sections. The latter h.\ ■ d ma- 

jority, must habitually '■•• \ d of the powi i 

the government, both in ibis and the oilier House: 
and being governed by that instinctive love of power 
so natural to the human on asi they must oecome the 
advocates of the powei and in the 

game degree, epposed to the limitation!-; while the 
other and weaker Bection is i thrown on 

the side of the limitations. In one word, I 
tion is the natural guardian ot the delegated powers, 
and the other of the reserved; and the struggle on 
the side of the former will be to enlarge the powers, 
while that on the opposite si'.le will be to restrain 
them within the constitutional limi ontest 

will, in fact, be a contest between power and libi 
and such he considered the present; a conte, 

weaker section, with i^ peculiar labor, 
at stake all that ran be 
dear to freemen. Should the] be able to maintain in 
iio ii fall vigor thei liberty and pros- 

peritywill be their portion; init.if tiey yield, and 
permit the Btronger Interest to consolidate withm 
Itself all the powers of the government, "> 
fati 6i //ion wretched 

* * 

southern man, trut toi qfhis section 

and faithful to the duties whicl ehaa allot - 

i ,•,■1,1,!, ,! prom a, honors 

menU of this government, which will be reserved 

for those only who have qaalifled themselves, by 

political prostitution for admission into the)Magdalen 

Asylums." 



Bitter, 6evere words ! with a depth of meaning 
not then fathomed, even by the great statesmen 
around him in the Senate, but in the light of this 
day appallingly clear. They were spoken just 
as nullification was quailing before Jackson's 
tremendous charge, in his well-remembered 
Proclamation, of December, 1832, and before the 
slightest ripple of anti-slaveryism had disturbed 
the surface of the nation. They were spoken by 
the universally-acknowledged champion of the 
South, and were meant to influence and shape 
Southern action; for the speech was such as no 
saDe man would have delivered, with expectation 
of its acceptance in the North or the West. In- 
deed, the evident design was to array the senti 
mentofthe "weaker section," the South, against 
the stronger sections, the North and West. And 
what was referred to, to produce the desired 
effect ? " The peculiar labor, productions 
and situation" of the South. That topic was 
adroitly sDrung upon the Southern mind, to 
take the place of the then defunct tariff issue; 
sprung before the South knew experimentally 
what anti-slaveryism was; sprung in connection 
with a quasi demand for a minority control of 
the government; and, beyond all question, in- 
tended as the rallying cry of the South, from 
that time forth, until, in Mr. Yancey's words, 
"at the proper moment, by one organized concerted 
action, they could precipitate the cotton States into a 
revolution !" 

Now, my friends, if that was not the very begin- 
ning of the agitation on the subject of slavery, I 
confess that I am net well informed. Of course 
1 do not forget the trouble connected with the 
admission of our own Slate into the Union; but 
that had passed away a dozen years before, leav- 
ing no dregs behind. I refer to that excitement i 
which has distempered nearly the last thirty ; 
vears of our history; and I say that the first dis- | 
turbing movement in reference to slavery was 1 
by Southern men, for the purpose— made abun- j 
dantly obvious by subsequent events — of consol- , 
idating the slave States into a disunion phalanx, 
to be ready at the beck of their leaders, when 
"the proper moment" should arrive, to precipitate 
revolution, and bring into existence a Southern | 
Confederacy. Let us look at those subsequent 
events. 

The first opportunity, after 1833, for an active 
manifestation of Southern disunionism, was in 
1814, in connection with the question of annex- 
ing Texas. You wHl remember that the South, 
with great unanimity, urged the annexation, 
while the North, to a large extent, was opposed to 
it. Itwas no secret that the course of the South 
was dictated by a desire to enlarge the area of slave 
territory and increase the number ot slave States. 
The disunion tiger, that had apparently slept, 
roused himself, unfleshed his claws, and growled 
the old growl of nullification clays. At Ashley, 
in South Carolina, a great meeting was held, in 
May, 1844, at which resolutions were adopted, 
proposing a convention, " to deliberate and 
decide upon the action to be taken by the slave 
States on the question of annexation ; and to 
appoint delegates to a convention of the slave 
States, with instructions to carry into effect, the be- 
hests of the people." What those behests 
would be, was distinctly indicated in the two 
following resolutions, the third and fourth of the 
series : 



quested by the general convention of the slave States, 
to call Congress together immediately ; when the final 
issue shall he made up, and the alternative distinctly 
presented to the free States, either to admit Texas 
into the Union,or to proceed peaceably and calmly to 
arrange the terms of a dissolution of the Union." 



3 " That a convention of the slave States, by dele- 
gations from each, should be called, to meet at some 
central position, to take into consideration the ques- 
tion of annexing Texas to the Union, if the Union 
will accept it : or. if the Onion will not accept it, 
then of annexing Texas to the Southern States. 

4. " That the President of the United States be re- 



About thesame time another large meeting: 
was held at Beautort, in the same State, which 
declared— " If we are not permitted to oring 
Texas into our Union peacefully and legitimate- 
ly, as now we may, then we solemnly announce 
to the world that we will dissolve this Inion sooner 
than abandon Texas." 

Another meeting in the Williamsburg district, 
in that State, declared—" We hold it to be better 
and more to the interest of the southern and south- 
western portion of the Confederacy, to be out oj 
the Union with Texas, than in it without her." 

These are but specimens of the out-spoken 
disunionism of South Carolina in 1844; and they 
were responded to, in like spirit, in other 
Southern States. These fresh manifestations of 
the old spirit fully justified the denunciation 
they received at the time from Colonel Benton, 
in the Senate, in the following words, which it 
had been well if the peopled the United States 
had heeded : 

" And here, Mr. President, I.must speak oat. The 
time has come for those to speak out, who neithec 
fear nor count consequences when their country is in 
danger Nullification and disunion are revived un- 
der circumstances which menace more danger than 
ever, since coupled with a peculiar question which 
gives to the plotters the honest sympathies of the 
patriotic millions. I have often intimated it before, 
but now proclaim it. Disunion is at the bottom of 
this long-concealed Texas machination. Intrigue and 
speculation co-operate; but disunion is at the bot- 
tom and I denounce it to the American people. Un- 
der the pretext of getting Texas into the Union, the 
scheme is to get the South out of it.' 

The next occasion when disunionism exhibit- 
ed itself was in the memorable conflict ot 1850, 
over the question of slavery in the Territories 
ft would be instructive to review that eventful 
struggle, terminating in the adoption of a series 
of compromise measures, which lulled the storm 
for a season ; but time does not permit. It must 
answer for the present, to recall to your recol- 
lection the imminent danger which apparently 
then overhung the country. The South, as had 
been its custom, menaced disunion; the North 
and the West labored to avert it. The greatest 
statesmen ol the land exerted their influence to 
subdue the conflict. Once more peace was seem- 
ingly restored; not because Southern treason 
was any less living and resolute than before, but 
because "the proper moment" had not arrived. 
No opportunity had yet existed jor stealing the 
arms of the nation, without which, rebellion 
would be hopeless. To obtain them, it was nee 
essirv tor the South to regain the control of the 
Government. And so they were constrained to 
bide their time. _ ., t> • 

The election of General Pierce to the I resi- 
dency in 1852, placed the War Department un- 
der the control of Jefferson Davis tor four 
vears; and it was well-understood that it Fre- 
mont had been elected in 1856, the South would 
then have revolted. But his defeat deprived 
them of the requisite pretext ; and Reappoint- 
ment of Floyd to succeed Davis in that Depart- 
ment, under a President who, elected by the 
votes of an almost unanimous South, had not 
the disposition, or lacked force ot will, to con- 
jtrol his traitorous plans and movements aflord- 
ed an opportunity too advantageous to be lost, 
ot completing the preparations lor the outbreak 
of the treason, which had so long been secretly 
i undermining the foundations of the Union. 



At last, " the proper moment " was seen by 
the conspirators to be at hand. Eight years' 
control of the army, the fortifications, and the 
arms of the nation, had given them all they de- 
sired. The South was armed, not only with the 
intent of treason, out with the weapons to give 
it effect. Only one thing was wanting, and that 
was the occasion. That came with the recurrence 
of the Presidential election, in 1860. The election 
of a President by the Republican party was to be 
the 6ignal lor revolt. It was indispensable that 
that result should be secured beyond all perad- 
venture. Should the Democratic party continue 
united, the Republican candidate might be de- 
feated, and then the conspiracy would fail, for 
want of a sufficient pretext. So, early in 1860, 
throughout the cotton States, in connection 
with the appointment of delegates to the Demo- 
cratic National Convention to be held at Charles- 
ton, in May, the plans were laid, which resulted 
in the disruption of that party, and made the 
election of the Republican candidate a foregone 
certainty. He was elected; and what followed 
we know but too well. The schemes of the 
traitors were at last near their fruition; the 
dark day for America had come; the star of 
her hope could hardly be seen in the blackness 
which settled down upon the land; and while 
the loyal part of the nation seemed to labor un- 
der a paralysis, the demons of treason, loosed 
from all restraint, burst upon the South, and, 
sweeping away constitutions and laws, and dash- 
ing down honor, justice, humanity, and truth, 
gave themselves up to a carnival of falsehood 
and robbery, treachery and destruction, which, 
it were hardly a hyperbole to say, the devils 
gazed at from their infernal abode with envy. 

I trust, my friends, that the foregoing review 
of the leading points in the rise and progressive 
movements of Southern disunionism, through 
more than the life of a generation, to their issue 
in secession and civil war, may not have been 
without interest to you. My object iu it, as you 
will have perceived, was to establish by incon- 
trovertible historical proofs, that Southern trea- 
son ante-dates att the grievances urged in its Justi- 
fication, and has only waited for a uuited South 
to execute its tell purpose. Let him who will, 
deliberately ignore the facts I have presented; 
bnt I will not stultify myselt by shutting 
out from my knowledge, what history will be 
faithless if it do not record. No : it is already 
burnt into American annals too deeply ever to 
be removed, that disunion has been a cardinal 
policy iu the South, without intermission, for 
more than a third of a century; fostered, upheld, 
and urged on, pear after year, with almost super- 
human constancy, by men whoalltne time were 
under oath to BupDort the Constitution they 
were laboring to overthrow, and were bound by 
the holiest obligations to defend and protect the 
Country, whose ruin was the first ami greatest 
object oi their machina 

Hut still the greal question remains — Whence 
l what the lij< of the rebellion, which in- 
augurated tlu »■"/■ 'Ming the land? In 
'he A. i. in ■ which it was my privilege to deliver 

id thifl place, mi the recent ;imii \ ersaiy of Wash- 
ington's biit b, i ,iiii not hesitate to declare my 
conviction that Bi lvbbi was its one sole cause; 
■"i'l I have not v ord to retract or modify, oi 

wh.it] then Said, [believe it, and cannot 'help 

believing it. Ami l desire now to state, more 
rally than l then could, the specific grounds of 
onvlctlon; confident that they will be 
deemed bj you tmpleand conclusive. 

When the people ol > number of 81 
tound united in principles, policy, and acts, the 
plainest Bcnse instantly looks lor some influence 



common to them all. Signally is this true, when 
they so far renounce all the ties which horn their 
birth have clustered around their hearts, as to 
combine in treason. Now, who can designate 
any influence in the insurgent States, other 
than slavery, capable of producing such a result ? 
It is the only one present in all — the only insti- 
tution, domestic, social, or political, which could 
biud them all together in 6uch a war as this. 
This single view is enough with me, and should 
be enough with every man whose mind is free to 
reach a right conclusion. But I do not rest 
merely upon this. The historical retrospect 
which ha6 occupied our attention, is itself con- 
clusive proof that, from the hour that nullifica- 
tion failed in South Carolina, the South has, 
through slavery, been gradually but surely linked 
to the cause of disunion. 

Recall the facts, and remark that in every in- 
stance after Mr. Calhoun's speech in February, 
1833, the disunion agitations were directly con- 
nected with slavery, and with nothing else. In 
1814, disunion w; s threatened, unless the slave 
territory of Texas were added to the Union. In 
1850, it was more alarmingly menaced, if slavery 
were not permitted unrestricted access to the 
Territories. In 1856, it took the form of a 
widely-concerted plot to resist, with arms, the 
inauguration of FKEMONTas President, solely on 
the pretense of danger to slavery. In 1860, it 
broke out in actual rebellion, on the same pre- 
tense, because of the election of Mr. Lincoln; 
and every defense of the rebellion, and every ap- 
peal to the South for cooperation in it, was 
based upon considerations appertaining to 
slavery. 

But not to confine ourselves to the course of 
events in the South, let us come nearer home, 
and look, lor a moment, at the position taken in 
Missouri. You all remember that on the twelfth 
of January, 1861, while the secession tempest 
was sweeping over the South, a monster meet- 
ing was held in St. Louis, which was catted a 
Union meeting. A number of resolutions were 
there adopted, some of which expressed Union 
sentiments. But there was one which betrayed 
the cloven foot of treason, and gave to that 
meeting the unenviable paternity of that double- 
faced mongrel, Conditional. Unionism; through 
which a wound was inflicted upon the Union 
cause iu this State, which has not to this day 
healed. 1 he patriots of Missouri looked, and 
had a right to look to St. Louis, for the moral 
support of a clear and soul-stirring declaration 
of loyalty to th« Constitution and the Union; 
but those who, in conclave, prepared the reso- 
lutions for that meeting — some of whom have 
since been and still are iu arms against the 
Union — treated them to poorly-disguised seces- 
sionism, in the following declaration : 

"That the possession of slave property is a consti- 
tutional right, and as Mich ought to be I - 
ni zed by the Federal Government. That if the Fede- 
ral Government shall fail and refun to secure /his 
right, ihe Southern States shot : united in 

Its defence— in which event Missouri will bhake 
THE 'common duties and common danheu of the 

80TJTH.'' 

This declaration was, in effect, a direct com- 
mittal of Missouri, so far as that meeting could 
commit her, to secession ; and thai upon the 
ground ol' a failure by the general Government 
to secure to the people the constitutional right 
to hold 6lave property ; aright which, those as- 
tute resolution-mongers in their eagerness for- 
got, depends not upon the Constitution of the 
United States, or the action of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, but upon local constitutions or laws, 
and therefore neither needs, nor is entitled to de- 



mand, security from the Government of the na- 

Thus you see, not only in the cotton States, 
but up in the latitude of Missouri, where cotton 
is not kins, the disunionists had but one watch- 
word, and that was slavery. I could, if neces- 
sary, accumulate evidence before you till to- 
morrow's sunset, that slavery has, from first to 
last, been the grand, sole key-note ol the South- 
ern traitors ; but I must desist. There is, how- 
ever, one document, which played so important 
a part in promoting secession, that I will crave 
your indulgence while I present a few lines from 
it, I allude to the "Address of the people of South 
Carolina, assembled in Convention, December 1860, 
to thepeopl i oj the slavelwlding Slates." Listen to 
the following words there found : 

" Citizens of the slaveholding States of the United 
States ■ Circumstances beyond our control have placed 
as In the van of the great controversy between the 
Northern and Southern States. We would have pre- 
furred that other States should have assumed the po- 
sition we now occuDy. Independent ourselves, we 
disclaim any desire or design to lead the counsels of 
tni* other Southern States. Providence has cast our 
lot together, by extending over us an identity of pur- 
suits, interests and institutions. South Carolina de- 
sires no destiny separate from yours. To be one of 

a GREAT SLAVEHOLDING CONFEDERACY, Stretching its 

arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe 
possesses— with a population four times greater than 
that of the whole United States when they achieved 
their independence of the British empire— with pro- 
ductions which make our existence more important 
to the world than that of any other people who inhabit 
it— with common institutions to defend and common 
dangers to encounter— we ask your sympathy and con- 
federation. * * * United together, and we must be 
the most independent, as we are the most important, 
anions the nations of the world. United together, 
and ice require no other instrument to conquer peace 
than our beneficent productions. United together, 
and we must be a great, free and prosperous people 
whose renown must spread throughout the civilized 
world and pass down, we trust, to the remotest ages. 
We ask you to join us in forming A CON* EDU.- 
EACY OF SLAVEHOLDING STATES." 

Now, my friends, I ask, in the sincerest can- 
dor, if any man who will allow himself dispas- 
sionate reflection upon the facts as they exist, 
can in his conscience say that any thing else than 
slavery was the origin and cause of this rebellion? 
What I have presented is, as it wore, but the title- 
page of the vast volume of similar matter, which 
the records and annals of our country contain ; 
records and aunals which, for the honor of Amer- 
ica and of the human race, should be wiped out 
of existence and erased from memory forever. 
They present one of the most startling exhibi- 
tions of depaved public morality that can be 
found in history ; not because the South loves 
its "peculiar labor, productions, and situation,' 
but because it exalts them above Constitut ion and 
Country! Southern leaders, and a large part of 
the Southern people, have shown themselves 
willing and resolved to immolate all that makes 
them respected as Americans— the unity and com- 
bined power of America ; and for what ? Not, as 
they lalsely affirm, to protect slavery against the 
" northern vandals," or, as they less classically 
term them, " the damned Yankees ;" but that the 
aristocratic and overbearing spirit which slavery 
engenders and stimulates, may have free scope, 
unchecked by that pestilent democratic element, 
which loves country; more than any material 
interest, and is too much of " mud-sill" nature 
to comprehend how or why, in a republic, an 
arrogant minority should lord it over an equally 
free and intelligent majority. Puffed up with 
the notion, that, organized as a " slaveholding 
confederacy," they would be " the most impor- 
tant among the nations of the world," they are utter- 



ly reckless of the fact, that, to attain that end, they 
must sunder, with bloody and heartless violence, 
the nation through whose Union they and their 
" peculiar institutions" have been protected and 
developed. Apparently as oblivious as the 
grave of the obligation of every people to live 
and act for the good of mankind, as well as for 
their own, their every utterance breathes only of 
self, and their every blow is struck for their own 
supreme aggrandizement. A vision of wealth to 
flow to them Irom a tributary world, of power 
to be wielded by them over cringing natiops, 
through their "beneficent productions," blinds 
them to the damnable wrong of despoiling their 
own nation of the very soil from which those 
productions are to spring ; much the greater 
part of which the nation bought, and 
for a large portion of which the nation iought. 
In a word "the divinity which stirs within 
them," impelling to treason, robbery, and blood, 
is that which neither Europe, Asia, or Africa 
worships, but which it was reserved for Ameri- 
cans to bow down to— the half-civilized negro ! 
If any one within the sound of my voice sup- 
poses, from what I have now or heretofore said, 
that I am, or ever have been, in any degree im- 
bued with bitterness toward slavery as a domes- 
tic institution, he greatly wrongs me. Some 
years of my youth were spent in Kentucky, 
and nearly half of my life has been passed in this 
State. I have, therefore, long been familiar with 
slavery in two of the border slave States. As a 
system of domestic servitude, while I believe it 
unprofitable there, my mind is free from any 
fanatical or intolerant bias against it. But when 
it is attempted to use it as a foundation tor 
amassing political power— when those interested 
in the dollars it yields, evince that they love 
the negro more than their country, and, 
for the sake of the former, would dissever and 
degrade the latter— when the masters of the 
slaves demand, though a minority, to be also 
the masters of a nation of white men, aud be- 
cause the nation refuses, go about with fire 
and sword to destroy it ; then I resist, and will 
resist to the last moment of my life, aud with 
all the powers which God may give me. In 
that case, what men may say e>f me, what pro- 
scription they may visit me with, what enmity 
they may exhibit, what denunciations they may 
hurl, are all matters of the most profound in- 
difference to me. I will speak and act for my 
Country, as duty demands, with no more con- 
sciousness of those things, than the dead have of 
the storms that oversweep their graves. 

Thus far, fellow-citizens, I have confined my 
remarks to the national aspects of our affairs. I 
should deem my obligation unfulfilled, were I to 
omit a distinct reference to the position and pol- 
icy of Missouri in the present crisis. We belong 
to a State which, in the elements of material 
greatness, takes a front rank in our country. 
Some of us have lived here many years, some all 
their lives, and all of us are attached to our home. 
Through the criminal machinations of a traitor- 
ous Governor and Legislature,— now happily de- 
posed from power by the people,— Missouri be- 
came a battle-field. She has been wasted by the 
tread of war, till over a large part of her surface 
devastation and misery prevail. Thousands of 
her people have endured untold sufferings, and 
her interests, in every department, have been 
grievously shattered. The impoverishment 
which inevitably follows civil war, has fallen 
crushingly upon her citizens. Her wealth is 
probably 'not one-half now, what it was con- 
sidered to be eighteen months ago. In every 
light her condition is deplorable; and it was 
made so by the Insane attempt, in the face of 



a clear impossibility, to precipitate her into 
the whirlpool of Southern treason. To restore 
t.er to her former high estate must be the work 
of years, and be done by her own people. It is, 
therefore, our manifest duty to bring ourselves, 
with all «>m i- |">u ere, to the earnest consideration 
of what will best achieve her restoration, and 
mo i conduce to the welfare, present and future, 
of ourselves and our children. On this subject, 
o directly home to every heart, I have 
ii words In have with you. 

In the iw: i place, every man, woman, and child 
within our borders, might as well at once dis- 
miss all thought of Missouri's ever becoming a 
pari "i the ".Southern Confederacy;" even if that 
th-stricken abortion should be resuscitated, 
and exist till the end of time. She has no in- 
• in common with them, which should, or 
will, lead her "to share the common danger 
of the South." She is, in latitude, climate, and 
productions, a northern State, and were she this 
momenl severed from the northern and united 

•untry, the 
severance would be so utterly unnatural, so 
completely ruinous to her, that her people 
would, by tens of thousands, desert her terri- 
tory, and seek better homes within the Union; 
and their places would never be filled from the South. 
But besides this, Missouri lies directly in the 
path between the Atlantic and Pacific sections 
"i the Onion; and the national Government 
would wage endless war, — and ought to do so, — 
rather than sullcr her to become the possession 
power. Her destiny, therefore, is 
Jljced, finally and irrevocably, in the Union. 

Such being the case, how shall we best and 
soonest restore hei, in the Union, to sound and 
stable prosperity? In my opinion, there is no 
serious difficulty in answering this question. 
As it has, for many years, been generally con- 
ceded by cool-headed and sagacious men, slave- 
holders among us:, that slavery is not essential 
to our prosperity, and, indeed, has but a 
limited held here in which it is profitable 
as a system of labor ; as it is known to retard 



immigration to our State ; as it is, beyond doubt, 
the origin and life of this horrible rebellion ; as 
it is undeniably true, that, but for its existence 
among us, we should have been almost wholly 
exempt from the immediate presence of this war 
within our boundaries; and as, judging from 
the past amd the present, it may be expected to 
be a fruitful source of trouble in the future ; it 
appears to me, in the exercise of the best judg- 
ment I possess, that, to provide in some welt-con ■ 
sidered, equitable, and gradual way, for Us eventual 
removal from our soil, would do more than all other 
things, to lift Missouri speedily out of her present 
unhappy condition, and start her forward in 
a fresh and higher career of prosperity. As 
to wheu this subject should be brought be- 
fore the people for practical discussion, or how 
the result should be effected, or when the pro- 
cess should begin,;or when the day of final ex- 
tinction should be fixed, I have nothing now to 
say. To express my opinion upon the main 
question, is enough for the present. This, 
however, ciioiild be said— that whenever pie-; 
sented to the popular mind, no fanatical, radical, 
or impetuous views should have influence -««Lm' 
it is a subject which will* tax the b< I 
and purest minds of our State to Iheir 
utmost, to deal with it in wisdom and jus- 
tice. Such views certainly have no influence 
upon me. I consider the question with refer- 
ence solely to our interest as apeople ; having no 
opinions concerning it which I would force 
upon others, nor any intolerance toward those 
who may differ from me. Our fortunes are 
closely linked together, and, humanly speaking, 
our destiny must be carved out by ourselves. 
We should, therefore, in a fraternal spirit, 
consider what will bring the greatest amount 
of permanent benefit to all. For my part, 
I will be faithful in the calm pursuit of what 
may at any time seem to me for the highest 
good of our whole State ; and, appealing to 
Heaven for the sincerity and purity of . my 
motives, will cheerfully commit the issue to the 
hands of an all-wise and gracious Providence. 









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